


worth the fall

by falloutmars



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Introspection, POV Jughead Jones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:54:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29902071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falloutmars/pseuds/falloutmars
Summary: They can’t do just friends.They’ve never been able to do just friends.It’s like the moment he climbed through her window and kissed her for the very first time, a switch was permanently flipped. No matter what has happened, might happen, will happen between them, that switch can never be flipped back. Their whole status quo changed forevermore.–or, just friends never works.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Comments: 5
Kudos: 43





	worth the fall

**Author's Note:**

> please note: this isn't canon compliant. though some details are similar, this assumes b/a never happened and, as mentioned, both b/j and v/a broke up under different terms. used the 7 year thing from canon simply because it was easier that way lmao. also, it was written in a short amount of time and barely edited so any mistakes are mine. it's a bit of a mess. regardless, i hope you enjoy it. <3
> 
> (title from the maine's (un)lost. "take the leap if it's worth the fall.")

They can’t do _just friends._

They’ve never been able to do _just friends_. 

It’s like the moment he climbed through her window and kissed her for the very first time, a switch was permanently flipped. No matter what has happened, might happen, will happen between them, that switch can never be flipped back. Their whole status quo changed forevermore.

And since that moment, it’s all or nothing. Fully committed lovers or nothing at all. Together in the utmost of ways or further apart than ever before. 

Throughout high school, they’d broken up a couple of times before the final time before they went their separate ways for what was meant to be forever. But each time, avoiding one another was the easiest way forward. He threw himself into the Serpents, she into the investigation. Two different corners of the town, just to avoid one another. Just to avoid those feelings bubbling up inside of them. 

Back then their paths inevitably gravitated towards one another again. They tried being _just friends_ , first in the form of a question or two, then into investigating together. It didn’t work. It would never work. There was too much history between them, too many unresolved feelings, too much left unsaid. 

They sat on the edge for a while, for as long as either of them could cope with. Falling one way would bring them back together as a couple, lovers, soulmates. Falling the other would end up with them apart. No friendship, no contact, just nothing. 

That time, they fell together. But the next time they didn’t. 

Seven years pass, and they’re back on that edge again. It’s different, though, this time. So much has happened, so much has changed. They aren’t scared teenagers anymore, and that edge is still there. They’re not on it yet, they’re not friends again, but everyone around them expects them to be.

He hates being back in town, and he thinks he’s made himself clear with that. It’s not where he wants to be, what he expected to be doing seven years after finally getting away, but he’s having to remind himself that it is what it is.

Seeing his ex day in, day out is more difficult than he thought, too. When they split up at the end of senior year, he expected that to be it. The end of that chapter of his life, onto different things. He never expected to still want her after so much time has passed.

Because he does. More than anything.

They’d broken up on amicable terms. They couldn’t survive the distance, both wanted better for one another. Talks of keeping up a friendship were never on the cards because they both knew it wouldn’t happen. But it was more than that. They both knew it _couldn’t_ happen. 

All or nothing. Hurtling towards that edge. Forever or never again.

But they’re back, and they’re in that situation again despite how hard they tried to avoid it. Inevitable perhaps it was, but that doesn’t stop it from being so goddamn painful.

He works in Pop’s diner most days. He sees everything again, from Betty Cooper and her infectious smile to Veronica Lodge and Archie Andrews being friends in a way he and Betty never could be. 

It hurts because they’d broken up too. They’d broken up on less amicable terms. He doesn’t know the ins and outs—something to do with Archie’s wandering eye—but he knows Veronica had been angry. She’d vowed to never speak to him again, yet here they are. Seven years later in a booth in Pop’s, smiling, laughing, chatting as if nothing ever happened. 

They’ve always done the whole _just friends_ thing so much better than Betty and Jughead. Somehow.

He watches them, smiles at them when necessary, but mostly he’s trying to hide his own pain. Maybe he’s jealous, watching two people who used to be his best friends, the other half of their group of four, be so _happy_. They’re not the same people as they were when they both left town, but they still managed to reconnect. Even if Veronica is married, even if Archie isn’t interested in love anymore, their history doesn’t matter. They can put apart their differences and simply be friends. Just like old times.

But Jughead… Every time she comes in, he physically aches. He aches because he can see those years between them, their history and their differences. They’re not the same people anymore, but his feelings haven’t changed. They weathered the storm and they make his heart ache when he’s constantly reminded that he can’t have her in any way anymore.

He tries to be friendly with her. Just friendly. No ulterior motive despite what his heart asks for, no hidden moves to try and weave them back to the past. _Just_ _friendly_. He smiles, asks her how she is, listens when she answers, but there’s something there stopping him from being able to cross that line.

He thinks she feels it, too. That need to jump off the edge. Because the edge, the line, they’re both change. All too tempting, yet never followed through.

If he jumps, he could fall. Fall into the dark depths of a life without Betty Cooper, a life without as much as a smile from the only person he’ll ever truly love. He could fall into nothing at all, like as soon as he makes that decision and starts falling, all memories of her fall with him. They’ll crash and shatter and burn and she’ll be gone from his life, from his everything.

But if he jumps, he could fly. Fly into a better world, one where she’s jumped with him and they’re _together_. It’s real, and it’s forever because they jumped. A leap of fate, really. Because he could fly if he took that chance, if he crossed that line beyond nothingness and beyond friendship.

Or he could stay still. He could teeter on the edge, neither falling nor flying. Never having her as a friend or as more. Living in pain because he isn’t brave enough.

That’s what it comes down to, really. In his selfish ways, he isn’t brave enough to jump. He can’t cope with the pain that a stifled friendship would bring, so he pushes her away. But he never pushes her away enough. It’s not all or nothing, but it should be. In his heart, it’s all or nothing, but in reality, it’s a push and a pull. Pushing her away, pulling her back. Pushing because it hurts; pulling because that hurts, too. 

It would be easy, he thinks, if they could be like Veronica and Archie. If they could be _just friends._ They could meet in Pop’s and laugh at stories from their time apart over milkshakes, or they could walk along Sweetwater River as they dig into the depths of each other's lives. They could be there for one another when they need it, a shoulder to cry on or an ear to listen. Nothing more, nothing less. No history, no unresolved feelings, nothing stopping them from being _friends_.

But they can’t. They don’t work like that.

There will always be history, too much love lost, too much still missing. It would be a stifled friendship, and it’d be too painful. Again, he’s too selfish. He can’t push past that, but he doesn’t think he’s alone.

So neither of them tries to jump. She comes in for dinner or a late-night milkshake, and he serves her like he would any other customer: with a smile. He suppresses that ache, ignores his heart’s urges, and forces away their history. In those moments, she’s just another customer.

He was never very good at pretending, though, so one day, he stops trying.

He takes the leap because she’s worth the fall.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope that was alright hahah. i'd love to know what you thought because it's a little messy. 
> 
> thank you for reading!! <3
> 
> ps: i may write a part 2 to this if anyone would like to see that


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